We recently connected with Emily Strong and have shared our conversation below.

Emily, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

Of course every job has its pros and cons, ups and downs, and that is as true for business ownership as any other profession, but I have learned that I can only be happy as a business owner. I had regular jobs for many years in a variety of fields and I was always deeply unhappy. And it was never about being unable to work on a team. Aside from the occasional toxic co-worker that you’ll find at any job, I typically got along really well with my co-workers. It wasn’t even always about my managers. I’ve had my share of deeply terrible bosses, but I’ve also had my share of great bosses that I got along with really well.

It took me a long time – and learning a lot about behavior in general and my neurotype in particular – to realize that I experience strong justice sensitivity and a low threshold of tolerance for maintaining the status quo when the only thing preventing a company from making crucial improvements is the human resistance to change. I also have an extremely low threshold of tolerance for the absence of critical thinking skills and growth mindsets, especially in leadership positions.

Once I had that realization about myself and my “operating system”, for lack of a better term, I was able to forgive myself for failing to thrive in regular jobs and embrace the reality that in order for me to be my best, most effective self, I needed to lean into those traits and blaze my own trail.

But the journey didn’t end there! When I started working with my two business partners, it felt like a dream come true. We are deeply aligned in terms of our values, ethics, and goals, and we set out to build a company that embodied those values, ethics, and goals. But my business partners are superwomen. They have these extraordinary skills that I am in complete awe of. Allie is our CEO and her ability to multitask, handle all these complex financial and legal details, and make tough decisions continuously amazes me. And Ellen is our Operations Manager and her ability to keep track of and navigate all the moving parts of our business and keep us all on track is, again, incredible to me.

For the first few years that we were in business together I kept trying to be like them, and share similar duties, because I felt this sense of urgency about being as valuable to the company as they are and being able to “Business” like a boss (yep, I just used “business” as a verb–I said what I said). And I kept failing over and over again.

That old shame crept back in–the shame I felt when I kept trying to be a “good employee” and hating it every single time. It took me a really long time, a lot of therapy, and several conversations with my business partners to figure out that what was wrong with this picture was that I was trying to be like them instead of just bringing my own skills to the table.

When I was able to let go of the need to be a business partner in the way that they are business partners and just be a business partner in the way that allows me to shine, suddenly the job became a lot easier and more fulfilling.

So yeah, it was a long journey, but I’ve finally figured out exactly where I’m supposed to be, what I’m supposed to do, and how I’m supposed to be doing it.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Well, it’s a really long story but I’ll try to make it as succinct as possible. (Spoiler alert: it is not at all succinct.)

I have always had a really intense connection to animals, from literal infancy. Some of my earliest memories are of having complex conversations with non-humans and not really being aware that we weren’t using spoken language to have these discussions. I don’t necessarily mean that in a woo way, and I would never claim to be an animal psychic, but I do think autistic folx tend to have a natural capability of observing minute shifts in body language and behavior that tends to be much more finely tuned than allistic folx, and that lends itself to much better and more nuanced communication across species. I say “tend to” because I don’t want to paint all of humanity with such a dichotomous, simplistic brush–but that has certainly been my personal experience, anyway.

At any rate, I bounced around many kinds of jobs and volunteer opportunities over my lifetime, but the overwhelming majority of them were in animal welfare fields. I started volunteering at an animal shelter and a vet clinic when I was 11, and had more than one job and, simultaneously, more than one volunteer role, for most of my life. Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve been involved – either through employment or volunteering – in a variety of veterinary practices, multiple shelters and rescue groups for multiple species, a couple of multi-species sanctuaries, wildlife rehab, an aviary, a stable, a working farm, as a pet sitter, and finally as a behavior consultant.

Throughout all these experiences, I had been taught a combination of dominance-based training methods, what are now called “balanced” training methods, and traditional restraint and medical handling techniques. And they all felt miserable to me, because I could see what those approaches were doing to the animals in my care. And that made me angry, because if only they wouldn’t fight against what we were doing to them, we wouldn’t have to be in this conflict! I don’t want to be in conflict with you! But I had been taught that it was all necessary, and actually good for them. Because if we don’t dominate them, then they’ll dominate us. And we have to reward the good and punish the bad so they can learn right from wrong. And sometimes we have to hurt them to help them, and those experiences make them resilient.

But I experienced so so so much cognitive dissonance, because my beliefs were in direct conflict with what I was actually observing. I watched so many animals’ behaviors deteriorate as a direct result of how we were interacting with them. And what everyone told me was animals who were becoming “obedient” and “accepting their place” and “learning respect”, looked to me like animals who were hopeless, helpless, and shut down. They were going away in their heads, disassociating–which is not the same thing as being calm, relaxed, and responsive.

By 2008 I was in a very, very dark place because I was abjectly brokenhearted. Everything I did, I did because I love animals… but I was so, so tired of “hurting them to help them.”

In college I had double majored in Linguistics and Psychology, so I remembered that a lot of research had been done on animal behavior. So I started looking into the behavior sciences and what they had to say about training and husbandry philosophies. Then I found a behavior analyst named Dr. Susan Friedman who taught courses on animal behavior specifically geared towards animal behavior professionals.

In the first session of the first course I took from her, fireworks were going off in my brain. I realized that the reason I felt so much cognitive dissonance about all the things I had been taught about behavior was because those things were just plain wrong. Everything I learned in that first class from Dr. Friedman made so much sense, and I literally sobbed with relief. And I realized that this is what I wanted to do with my life: helping humans and non-humans to better communicate with and understand each other so that everyone’s needs can be met and they can have a healthy, thriving, trusting companionship.

I jumped in with both feet, shadowing multiple mentors, taking courses, reading so so so many books. But also, because I had so many fingers in so many different animal welfare related pies, I was able to fully immerse myself in real-world practice with dozens of species.

Fast forward to 2015, when Allie and I got a book deal to write “Canine Enrichment for the Real World”. We also shared a lot of other projects and programs, and eventually realized that it just made sense to merge our businesses. So in 2019, shortly before our book was published, I joined Allie as part owner of Pet Harmony, LLC. A year or so later, we brought on Ellen as our third business partner.

We offer three primary products and services:

1) We offer private client behavior consulting services, both in person in the west Chicago suburbs and virtually to clients around the world. A lot of people feel skeptical that virtual behavior consulting works, or they’re afraid that it’s just going to be a lot of talking and no actual work, but neither of those things are true. We have just as many successful outcomes through our virtual sessions as we have through our in person sessions, in part because we are able to watch clients train and give them feedback regardless of the modality we’re using to meet with them.

2) We offer a professional development mentorship program called PETPro (The Practice of Enrichment and Training for Professionals). I’ll talk more about this in a little bit.

3) We have a podcast called “Enrichment for the Real World” where we talk about a variety of topics that are related to enrichment for both humans and non-humans. It is geared towards both pet professionals and pet guardians.

I am the most proud of PETPro for many reasons.

Firstly, because we’re doing something with that program that no one else is currently doing. While there are of course other mentorships available in the profession, we have yet to find anything as comprehensive and supportive as what we’ve built.

This was important to me, because my entry into the field was rough and circuitous and I made a lot of mistakes. No one should have to go through what I went through to acquire the knowledge and skills that I’ve acquired and get to where I’ve gotten in this field. But this is an unregulated industry and there really aren’t any programs – academic or otherwise – that cultivate the entire spectrum of skills that my business partners and I have identified as being critical to becoming an ethical, effective, efficient, and enriching behavior professional. We like to joke that PETPro’s tagline is, “We messed up so you don’t have to.”

And finally, we place a strong emphasis on a lot of skill trees that elsewhere are ignored entirely or only lightly touched on: epistemology, metacognition and mindsets, self care, trauma informed care, and social justice and harm reduction. The feedback that we regularly get from the majority of our mentees is that when they first get into PETPro, those are the skills that they value the least or perhaps don’t even understand why they matter and why they’re included in PETPro. But after a few months in the program, they start to realize that those are actually the most important skills that we need to learn as behavior professionals, and all the other skill trees need to be built on that strong foundation.

And make no mistake, all of those things ARE the foundation. Because as Gandhi said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

Enrichment is about meeting the needs of ourselves and the learners in our care, and empowering them to meet their own needs as much as possible.

Self care is client care. Healed people heal people.

Critical thinking and being able to assess the integrity of the information we’re receiving, operating from, and disseminating is harm reduction.

Being aware of and addressing power dynamics, privilege, and vulnerable populations is how we strengthen our communities and heal ourselves and each other.

Learning how to navigate conflict with compassion, strong boundaries, and accountability through restorative practices is how we heal and strengthen relationships–both within our species and across other species.

It’s all interrelated. My profession doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And I think one of its greatest strengths is that it is overlooked, undervalued, and trivialized in our society. Because when people perceive the stakes as being lower, they’re more open to hearing things and learning things that they maybe feel more defensive about – or, conversely, think they’ve already got a strong grasp on – when they perceive the stakes as being higher.

So yeah. This is my dream job and I am so proud of what we do.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

We have a saying at Pet Harmony: “The hierarchy is logistical, not cultural.” Because yes, businesses need an organizational hierarchy so that everyone has a crystal clear understanding of what their role in the company is, who their direct report is, and how their work impacts the company as a whole. And yes, managers are necessary to make sure everyone on their team is working in sync and projects are running smoothly. And yes, at the end of the day, there has to be someone at the top to call the shots based on their broader perspective of all the moving parts of the company.

However, that is where a hierarchy’s usefulness ends. The notion of leadership being superior to anyone else on the team is just plain gross and we fundamentally reject that mindset. Everyone on the team has value. Everyone on the team has input and can contribute ideas. Everyone on the team is listened to and heard. That doesn’t mean that everyone on the team can get their way all the time, but all ideas are discussed with respect and thoughtfulness.

Good managers lead by exemplifying a growth mindset, a willingness to take feedback and engage in good faith conversations about that feedback, and cultivating a safe, collaborative, and supportive culture. When someone on the team isn’t meeting expectations, instead of thinking about it in terms of punishment, retaliation, or keeping subordinates in line, it’s important to ask: what’s missing here? Does this person need more support? Do they need more or different kinds of training? Are they in the right role?

And when it turns out that a team member isn’t the right fit, instead of thinking of it as a moral failing on their part and a rejection on your part, it’s helpful to realize that yours simply isn’t the right environment for them to thrive in.

We still feel affection and positive regard for everyone we’ve parted ways with, because we realized that their strengths, goals, needs, and desires simply didn’t align with ours. Trying to force them to fit into our company would be a disservice to everyone involved. By letting them go, they are free to carve their own path in the industry and we are able to stay true to our vision, mission, and goals.

And yes, absolutely, you will make mistakes. We’ve made lots of them. But we learn from our mistakes, and we change our behavior based on what we’ve learned so we can do better next time. And more importantly, we are totally transparent with our team about our mistakes and what we’ve learned. Doing so makes it safe for everyone on our team to make mistakes, too, without fear of judgment or retaliation. So they, too, can feel empowered to try new things, learn from their mistakes, change and grow. And everyone benefits from that, including and especially the company itself.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I met Allie first, so I’ll tell you her story first, and then I’ll tell you how I met Ellen.

I had moved across the country to take a job in one department of a very large animal sanctuary, only to discover on my first official day there that I had been grossly misled about what that job entailed and why I had been hired in the first place. It ended up being the worst, most toxic, and most stressful job I’ve ever had.

The problem was that I had spent every penny to move there, so I couldn’t afford to just quit and move back home. Feeling stuck and borderline panicky, I applied for a job in a different department at the same sanctuary, hoping it would be a better experience.

I was waiting in their lobby for my interview when Allie walked in after her lunch break. She stopped, turned and looked at me, stared blankly for a couple of seconds, screamed at the top of her lungs for a couple of seconds, then went back to staring at me blankly for a few more seconds. I stared back for a few seconds and then started cracking up.

“What was THAT?!” I asked.

“You startled me!” she replied.

“That was your startle response??” We both laughed for a long time and I remember thinking, “This is my kinda person.”

Fast forward: I got the job. I loved my whole team, and the job was leagues better than the other department. But Allie and I had a special bond. We shared a background with and a passion for enrichment and its role in animal welfare and behavior change. We worked together well. We finished each other’s thoughts.

Fast forward even farther: you know that saying, “People don’t leave companies, they leave managers?” Well, our managers were great, but the leadership at the top of that organization was definitely worth leaving. But by then, Allie had become my ride or die. We were writing a book together. We were building programs together. We referred to each other as work wife.

So in 2019 we made it official and merged our businesses together.

Meeting Ellen, on the other hand, was a stroke of pure luck. I knew of Ellen through social media and her reputation in the profession, but I met her for the first time when Allie and I went to a conference in March of 2020. We hit it off and both of us definitely liked her whole vibe, but we didn’t get a chance to spend much time with her because on the first day of the conference, COVID was declared a pandemic and we all had to drop everything and rush home before the airports were closed.

A few months later, I got really sick and we didn’t know what was wrong with me. It wasn’t COVID, but it was debilitating. I couldn’t work full time, which meant that I couldn’t pull my weight and Allie was left doing a lot of the heavy lifting. We both wished that we could hire a third person, but where would we even begin to find such a person?

Maybe a day or two after Allie and I had that conversation, Ellen reached out to me out of the blue and asked if we could chat. I don’t know why I was the person she wanted to talk to about it, but she told me that she felt like she was in a professional rut and wanted to brainstorm with me. Without even checking with Allie first, I impulsively blurted out, “Do you want to work for us?”

Ellen’s eyes got big and she said, “Really?”

And I said, “Yeah. Really”

So at first, Ellen was an employee. But it didn’t take long for us to realize that she wasn’t just an employee. She was the missing piece of our puzzle. She stepped in for Allie where I couldn’t and brought skill sets to the table that neither of us had. So we put a ring on it, and made her our third partner.

Among her many talents, Ellen has a succinct insightfulness that I only wish I had (as you can tell by this interview, succinctness is definitely not my strong point). She helped us to really crystallize our roles in the company, and she put it like this:

Allie protects the business.
Ellen protects the team.
Emily protects our ethics.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://petharmonytraining.com/
• Instagram: @petharmonytraining for pet guardians and @petharmonypro for behavior professionals
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/petharmonytraining/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20RQH9qezwcinH6aAYASCw
• Other: Our podcast: https://petharmonytraining.com/podcast/
  Our book: https://petharmonytraining.com/resources/canine-enrichment-for-the-real-world/
  PETPro: https://petharmonytraining.com/petpro/

Image Credits

These are all my photos, taken by me or by a friend using my phone.